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Lean Church
March 2, 2014
2014 Lenten Devotional
Posted by Pastor Chaney under 21st Century Leadership, AME CHurch, AME Zion Church, Baltimore Washington Conference, Christian Leadership, Christian Living, Church Culture, Church growth, Church Revitalization, Congregations, Devotional, Disciple Library, Disciple Making Churches, Discples, Fasting, Forgiveness, Grace, Infinite Grace Fellowship, Lay Leadership, Leadership Team, Lean Church, Lent Devotional, Life Transformation, Life Transformation Groups, Mainline Church, Making Disciples in our Communities, Making Disciples in our Culture, Repentance, Spiritual Discipline, Spiritual Formation, Spiritual Leadership, United Methodist Church, Urban Church, Urban Ministry, Vital Congregations1 Comment
March 6, 2009
Maximizing Your Ministry Effectiveness
Posted by Pastor Chaney under 21st Century Leadership, AME CHurch, AME Zion Church, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Church growth, Church Revitalization, COGIC, Congregations, Disciple Making Churches, Lean Church, Mainline Church, Making Disciples in our Communities, Methodism, Organic Church, UCC, United Methodist Church, Urban Church1 Comment
The Lean Church
Streamlining Your Ministry for Maximum Effectiveness
Value versus waste. They may sound easy to distinguish, but if you have ever planned a garage sale with your spouse, then you understand that the distinction may not be simple.
Although some forms of waste are easy to recognize in organizations—people sitting around doing nothing, products ruined by damage or spoilage, scrapped parts, and so on—other forms of waste are not so obvious. They are silent killers of value that simply consume resources, absorb our mental energies, and block the flow of real value. These types of waste, which we’ll discuss below, are found not only in poorly managed, inefficient organizations; they have infected, to a greater or lesser extent, the activities of every organization.
But American industry is discovering that a fundamental key to competitiveness is distinguishing real customer value from waste. In fact, researchers have even coined a term—”lean”—to refer to the idea of reducing waste and making value flow. And what’s true for successful businesses is true for successful churches as well: “lean” churches are more effective at achieving their ministry goals than are other churches. How so? Let’s look first at what “lean” is all about and then demonstrate its potential for maximum ministry.
Mission Arlington (www.missionarlington.org): Begun in 1986 by veteran missionary Tillie Burgin, their goal from the outset has been to make spiritual life and family available to the vast numbers of apartment dwellers who do not easily fit more conventional churches. Now, on any given Sunday, 3,700 people meet in some 250 small gatherings, mostly in apartments in and around Arlington, Texas. For the people of Mission Arlington, these are gatherings of their church, their spiritual family.Over the years the church has developed an impressive array of services for people in its reach, from medical and dental care and counseling, to help with food, clothing and furniture. A simple request can lead to wide range of help becoming available. These services are seen supporting the core task of welcoming people into a true spiritual family. Mission Arlington is widely studied, and similar efforts are underway in other American cities.Duncan Compassion Center: When the Northside and Westside churches in Duncan, Oklahoma merged to form the Chisholm Trail Church, the former Northside facility was left vacant and was seemingly useless. However, God launched a new ministry by using this old facility and some Christian physicians who had been involved in medical missions in Nicaragua. Dr. Kent King, who had been a leader in the Nicaragua mission, observed: “when we came back (to Oklahoma), we realized how great the need was here. We saw a lot of poverty in Nicaragua, but looking around Duncan, we saw a lot of poverty here as well. I am still so amazed at how God opened this door for us.”The former worship facility was renovated, and the physicians opened a multifaceted “Compassion,” providing healthcare exams, a pharmacy, a food pantry, a clothes closet, optometry, and legal counsel to the needy. All services, including medications, are provided free to local people who lack adequate private or government health insurance. Through this Center, the gospel message is being lived-out daily and it’s reaching people who would have never heard it otherwise. (Summarized from “Missions from the Third World Come Home” by Joy McMillan, The Christian Chronicle, January, 2004).Awakening Chapels (www.cmaresources.org): In the past five years, Awakening Chapels has planted more than 300 “organic” churches—house churches—with the number now doubling each year. These churches focus on simple, reproducible structures and target unreached “pockets of people,” mostly in America’s southwest. Founding leader Neil Cole explains:
Simple and reproducible also defines Cole’s approach to training new believers and leaders. In his book, Raising Leaders for the Harvest, he outlines principles that are now being taught across the country in an intensive training event, The Organic Church Planter’s Greenhouse. |